


tell me now (where was my fault)

by TaytheBae



Series: Because I Need You (In My Pocket) [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Billy Hargrove Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Billy Hargrove Is Bad at Feelings, Disney Movies, Fae Steve Harrington, Fluff, M/M, Mechanic Billy Hargrove, Minor Angst, Not Canon Compliant, References to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Friendship, Robin Buckley Needs a Hug, Steve Harrington Has a Crush on Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23064571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaytheBae/pseuds/TaytheBae
Summary: It had been four months since Billy and Robin caught the fairy in his apartment. Four months of learning about Steve and his world and all that came with it. Four months of Billy and Steve growing closer together, fascination turning to friendship with the buds of something sweetsoftpretty more sprouting every day. Four months of Steve living with Billy, doing small chores around the apartment while Billy toiled away down the street at the garage.-OR-Billy and Steve being domestic, and a movie night with Robin takes an unexpected turn while watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley & Billy Hargrove, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington
Series: Because I Need You (In My Pocket) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656328
Comments: 8
Kudos: 125





	tell me now (where was my fault)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this instead of studying for my midterm... oops. I wasn't expecting to get sucked into this as I did, meant for it to be a short drabble, but um, yeah. I'm working on another piece about Steve's backstory, so please don't hate me for alluding to it here! :D
> 
> -  
> Title is from White Blank Page by Mumford & Sons

It had been four months since Billy and Robin caught the fairy in his apartment. Four months of learning about Steve and his world and all that came with it. Four months of Billy and Steve growing closer together, fascination turning to friendship with the buds of something _sweetsoftpretty_ more sprouting every day. Four months of Steve living with Billy, doing small chores around the apartment while Billy toiled away down the street at the garage.

It was one of the hottest days in July on record for Bridgeway, at least 98°. Because of the heat, and the unbearable humidity from Lake Michigan, the garage becomes a sweltering oven and Billy closes up shop soon after 2 in the afternoon.

As soon as he walks in the door to his tiny apartment, he sighs at the sweet A/C, working overtime to combat the heat. He shucks his shoes off by the door, can practically hear Steve’s _whiningcomplaining_ bitching about tripping over Billy’s work boots for the umpteenth time. He heads to the dining table and drops his keys and wallet off, wondering where Steve could be. He doesn’t hear any shuffling in the kitchen, assumes he must be in Billy’s bedroom. He loves sleeping on Billy’s bed, curled up like a cat where the light filters in through the shades.

Billy heads to the kitchen to get some water, but after feeling the sweat become sticky in the A/C, decides a shower is a better first move.

He gets as far as undressing and going to turn on the water before he hears soft footsteps padding from his bedroom into the hallway, and the doorknob turning slowly. He freezes, voice caught in his throat as Steve opens the door and blinks sleepily at a naked Billy, confirming that he had indeed just woken from a nap. Comprehension begins to wash over Steve’s face, replacing sleep found softness and replacing it with a bright red blush starting high and his cheeks and rapidly spreading _downdowndown_ to Billy’s Metallica shirt, that Steve stole again.

“I, uh, I had to-to go to the, uh, the bathroom,” He stutters out. “I didn’t think you would be home yet? That’s why I, um, I didn’t knock. I’m sorry, I’ll just,” and with that mangled excuse out, Steve turns on his heel and slams the door behind him. As if the noise broke some kind of trance, Billy abruptly turned his head away from where Steve had stood and went to continue his shower, movements mechanical. He turned the water on, cold, and perfunctorily went through the motions of washing his hair and body, resolutely ignoring how certain parts had chosen to respond to Steve’s sudden intrusion.

 _It’s not like that. We’re just friends. Steve explained that it wasn’t a courting ritual so much as a friendly way to help out someone they found interesting. It’s not like that._ His dick didn’t seem to care though, only calming down as Billy turned his mind towards Mrs. Jenkins’ latest car troubles, a busted carburetor, and absolutely anywhere besides _how pretty Steve flushed wonder how far down it goes what it tastes like._

Billy huffed and turned off the water, deciding the sweat had been washed off enough. He had started to turn pruney from standing there too long, thinking in circles. He got out and dried off, wrapping the towel around his waist to head to his room and get dressed in softer clothes. He pulls on an old tee shirt, soft from so many washes, the faded lettering spelling out ‘World’s Okayist Brother’, an 18th birthday present from Max. He pulled on some sweatpants that were equally as soft, and headed out to get that glass of water.

As he rounded the corner, he spotted Steve curled on the couch and let out a gruff, “Bathroom’s open,” jerking his thumb over his shoulder, as if after four months Steve wouldn’t know where the bathroom was. He continued on and got his glass of water, stopping to pull out an apple from the fridge. As he was walking back into the living room, munching on the apple, Steve returned to the couch, wiping his hands on his pajama pants Robin had gotten him when they had first caught Steve, and found out his fae clothes didn’t grow in size when he did. They were green with little leprechauns dancing around a pot of gold all over them. Steve had been distinctly unimpressed, saying, “Leprechauns don’t look like that. They’re assholes,” but he still wore them.

Billy set his water cup on the end table and settled on the opposite end of the couch from Steve.

“What are we watching?”

“He-Man. The episode where they find the kitten in the forest.” The stilted awkwardness is still in Steve’s voice.

“Oh, Battlecat. Nice. I love this episode.” Billy tries to regain the easy casualness they’ve had for the past two months, after tiptoeing around each other for _weeks_. He really didn’t want to go back to that.

Steve nods and then suddenly perks up, all awkwardness forgotten in his excitement.

“Oh. Robin called on the talkie thing-“

“The phone.” Billy interjects. He and Robin had slowly been introducing Steve to technology, but he still forgot the names sometimes.

“Yeah, the phone. She asked about a movie night tonight? Since she doesn’t have an early shift tomorrow.” Steve turned and looked at Billy fully for the first time since they’d sat down, pulling the full force of his bambi eyes on Billy, as if he would ever say no to him or Robin. Steve had him wrapped around his finger, and he liked his balls too much to challenge Robin.

“Sure, you want to call her back and tell her 6 o’clock? And pizza’s on her this time.”

“Um, okay. I’ll try.” Steve turned to where the phone was sat, on the end table next to his side of the couch. He picked up the pad that Billy had written two phone numbers, to the garage and Robin’s home line. His tongue poked out between his teeth as he concentrated on typing in the right numbers to the phone, beaming when he succeeded. As the ringing began, he turned to Billy and said a quick, “I did it!” Then Robin picked up, and Steve started chatting with her, eventually telling her that Billy said yes, and to come at 6 with pizza. He bid Robin a goodbye, hung up, and turned back to Billy.

“She said she’d get the pizza, but she was picking the toppings.” Billy groaned, knowing she would pick some _nastygrossvile_ weird vegetarian thing, just to get under his skin.

“Whatever. Hope she doesn’t pick out anything to terrible.” Steve hums in agreement, even though he prefers if they get a veggie pizza. Apparently, fae aren’t big on meat.

With their evening plans settled, they sit and watch a couple more episodes of He-Man before the 5 o’clock news comes on. Steve immediately loses interest in the on goings of the human world and turns to glance at Billy.

“Can I braid your hair?”

“Sure, go grab the stuff,” Billy says casually, focused on the weather forecast. He’s hoping that it will cool down soon. At least to low 80s.

Steve jumps off the couch and almost runs to the bathroom, where Billy keeps his hair stuff. He doesn’t have a lot, just some product to manage his curls, a few combs, and some loose hair ties, but he had expanded his hair tie collection after they had begun the routine of Steve braiding his hair, throwing a couple scrunchies into the mix. Steve returns with a wide-toothed comb and a soft blue scrunchie around his wrist. Billy slides off the couch on to the floor in front of it, and Steve settles behind him, pulling his shoulders back to rest against Steve’s shins. Content, they spend the next hour like that, Billy _kind of_ watching the news and Steve braiding and unbraiding his hair until he’s satisfied.

Just as Steve is finally tying the scrunchie and patting Billy’s shoulder to say he’s finished, there’s a knock on the door, followed by “Hey dingus, I know you’re home. Open up.”

Billy huffs and stands up, stiff from sitting on the hard floor for so long without moving.

“I’m coming. Hold on.” He opens the door to see Robin, balancing a stack of rented movies on top of a greasy pizza box. She barely spares a glance at the intricate braid falling over Billy’s shoulder as she waltzes passed him like she lives there, which, with the frequency that she visits, she basically does. She drops her load on the dining table as Steve scurries off to grab three plates for the pizza. Billy walks over and opens the pizza box, turns to Robin with a raised eyebrow.

“You got half sausage? What’d you do now?” She never gets meat on the pizza, deferring to Steve’s vegetarian preferences. If he wants any meat on his pizza, he usually has to order. She smiles back at him sheepishly and gestures to the tapes that had fallen off the pizza box.

“It’s Disney night. Steve asked for something animated.”

Billy sighed, resigns himself to a night of off-key singing and obnoxious talking animals, and looks over the movies she brought from her job at the local video rental store. _Cinderella_ , _Snow White, Lady and the Tramp, and Bambi_. Great. By the end of the night he’s going to have a teary, over emotional Steve to deal with.

“Fuck Robin. Why’d you have to get Bambi, you know that’ll make him bawl his eyes out.”

Robin gave him a deeply unimpressed look and shoots back, “Him or yourself, Hargrove?”

Before Billy can snap back a retort, Steve waltzes back in juggling three plastic plates, two beers, and a glass of grape juice. He sets down the glass of juice and the beers and hands out the plates, giving Robin the blue plate, Billy the red, and keeps the green one for himself. He starts talking to Robin about her recent shift at Family Video and how he watched He-Man like she asked, prompting her into a surprisingly good imitation of Skeletor.

They all load up their plates and head towards the couch. Robin sets her plate and beer down on one of the end tables and grabs the first movie, showing the cover to Steve and tries to get him to read it. Along with no knowledge of technology, Steve confessed that he’d never learned how to read English, only knew the fae symbols. So Robin and Billy were helping him learn, and they had progressed recently from picture books to short chapter books. Carefully, Steve read out ‘ _Snow White and the Seven D-_ I, I’m not sure how that’s supposed to sound?”

“That’s totally understandable. It’s a weird word. It’s dwarfs,” Robin encourages.

“Wait, it’s a movie about dwarfs? That sounds really boring, Robin. Why’d you chose this one?”

Billy interjects here with a, “Oh, I’m sure you’ll love it Steve. It’s more about Snow White than it is the dwarfs.”

“Oh. Okay.” Steve resettles on the couch next to Billy, balancing his plate of veggie supreme pizza on his knees as he sips on his glass of juice. Robin nods, content at Steve’s acceptance, and pops in the tape. It starts up as she sits on the opposite side of Steve from Billy, and they all tuck in to their dinner. It isn’t until the Evil Queen enchants herself to look like an ugly old woman that anyone in their little trio says anything. Robin snorts and huffs out a quiet, “It doesn’t work like that.”

Billy turns to her, feeling _confusedhesitantunsure_ puzzled. “What doesn’t work like that?”

Robin flushes and says nothing more. Steve shushes both of them, admonishing them for talking when ‘it’s just started to get good!’. So they once again lapse into a comfortable silence, watching as Snow White eats the apple and falls asleep, only to be saved by the prince in the end. As the credits roll, Robin stands up, huffing about the idea of a woman needing a man to kiss her to live and how _she always forgets how much she hates this movie_.

Steve states that he didn’t really like it either, except for the part where the animals help Snow White. He agrees with Robin that magic doesn’t work like that, and Billy blurts out, “Wait, that’s what you were talking about? That _magic_ doesn’t work like that?”

“Well, um, yeah kind of?” She squeaks out.

“How would you know? It’s magic. It’s a fairy tale about a girl getting saved by a bunch of animals and a talking mirror, it’s not exactly a documentary.”

“I know, but they could have made the magic a little more realistic. It’s not about dusty old books.”

“Who says?”

“I say, and it’s true. It gives a bad name to actual magic users, like Salem wasn’t hard enough.”

“What are you talking about?”

Steve watched this back and forth like a tennis match, before interjecting, “Why are you arguing with Robin about magic? She’s a witch, she’s definitely the expert here.” The room lapses into a tense silence, until Billy finally breaks it with a shout.

“Robin’s a what?”

“She’s a witch. Can’t you tell? I mean, I know humans aren’t as attuned to magic as fae, but like Robin…” Steve continues to break down all of the traits that classify Robin as a witch, but Billy tunes it out, staring at Robin intensely.

“Is he telling the truth? You’re a witch?” He asks, his face unreadable.

He can tell the moment Robin’s will hardens and she prepares for battle. “Yeah, I am. Got a problem Hargrove?”

“Yeah, I do.” He can see the unease in her eyes, and yeah he’s kind of being a dick, but he’s also kind of hurt, and it shows when he says, “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me before?”

Everywhere Robin was tense, fight or flight written in her posture and face, loosen at the question. She sighs.

“I was scared, okay? Shit like Salem? That shit still happens, especially in small towns. You never know. It’s just-“

“Just what? It’s just what Robin?” He _barksbites_ snaps, falling back to old habits of turning hurt to anger.

“It’s just hard okay? This isn’t some pretty, fancy fairy tale. I’m a witch and I hail from a long line of witches, sworn to secrecy out of _necessity_ , okay? This isn-“

“Isn’t as easy as telling someone about how their father use to beat them? Almost killed them when he found out his son was a fucking pillow-biter?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know Billy.”

Just as their argument starts ramping up to the point of slamming doors and tears, Steve speaks up.

“You’re like me, aren’t you?”

Billy makes a befuddled, agitated noise, but Steve only has eyes for Robin at that moment.

“You’re like me,” he repeats. “Abandoned and ignored.” It isn’t a question this time. Steve got the answer from Robin’s lack of response, the wetness forming in the corners of her eyes. At her _pitifultragicupset_ miserable expression, all of the indignant anger Billy had _whooshes_ out of him, and he moves towards Robin.

“I’m sorry Robs. I shouldn’t have yelled.” She nods, and looks up at Billy’s face.

“My coven, they left me here. Just disappeared, after they found out I liked girls. Said I was a waste of talent if I wouldn’t even be willing to pass it on.”

“Shit Robs. That’s fucked.”

Steve, ever the peacemaker, claps his hands together and says, “Well, I want popcorn before the next movie.” Billy and Robin chuckle hesitantly and move away, Billy to make popcorn since Steve wasn’t allowed to touch the microwave after _The Incident_ , and Robin to pull out the next movie. Just before Robin starts _Alice in Wonderland_ , Billy comes back in with a big bowl of popcorn, plops it in Steve’s grabby hands, and squats next to Robin.

“We good Buckley?” She checks his shoulder with hers and laughs amicably.

“Yeah, we’re good Hargrove.”

\-----

Steve does cry at _Bambi._ And so do Robin and Billy.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](https://harringrovetrashh.tumblr.com/)


End file.
